FRIDAY, June 7, 2002 (HealthDayNews) -- A type of Pap test now can also be used to find out whether a person has certain sexually transmitted diseases (STDs).
Cytyc Corporation has announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved its ThinPrep Pap test for chlamydia trachomatis and neisseria gonorrhea. These are two of the most common STDs in the world. In the United States alone, chlamydia trachomatis accounts for an estimated three million new cases a year. Nearly half of the cases are in young women between the ages of 15 and 19.
ThinPrep is a very well-known adjunct to the Pap test, which is used to discover changes in cells in the cervix. The same cells taken for that diagnosis can now be used for the STD test.
One of the major dangers with both chlamydia trachomatis and neisseria gonorrhea is that they're often undetected because many people have no symptoms. As a result, these bacterial infections can show up much later and be quite harmful.
For example, chlamydia trachomatis can lead to pelvic inflammatory disease or infection of the upper genital tract. This can lead to reproductive complications such as ectopic pregnancy, tubal-factor infertility and chronic pelvic pain. The irony is that both chlamydia and gonorrhea are usually easily treatable with antibiotics.
The Advanced Medical Technology Association offers this information about diagnosing cervical changes using various testing procedures.
